Recessed electrical boxes for retrofitting on finished walls or for use in new construction were disclosed in co-pending U.S. application Ser. Nos. 10/863,942 and 11/009,116, commonly owned by the assignee of the present invention, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The recessed electrical box disclosed in the co-pending applications comprised an electrical box having an inner enclosure for housing an electrical device and an outer enclosure for recessing the inner enclosure well within a wall. One or more flanges extended outwardly from the electrical box. For mounting to new construction, a first, breakaway inner flange was left intact and utilized as is for securing the box to the newly constructed building's substrate. Conversely, if mounted to an existing building in a retrofit situation, the inner flange was broken away to allow insertion of the box within an appropriately sized hole created for the box in the existing building. An outer flange was provided for masking the siding or other wall covering at the juncture of the electrical box with the surrounding siding. A cover member having a narrow peripheral side wall was provided for closing and rainproofing the electrical device therein. The co-pending applications disclosed the outer enclosure of the electrical box being a larger size than the inner enclosure to facilitate easy access to the inner enclosure and easy shedding of any residual rainfall that penetrated therein.
Although an electrical box based on the principles of the co-pending applications provided an improved rainproof electrical box, the different size enclosures, being typically molded in one piece of plastic, unnecessarily complicated the molding process and added to the expense of producing the box.
Accordingly, the present invention improves upon the rainproof recessed outlet box of the co-pending applications by providing a rainproof recessed outlet box that is of simpler construction and more economical to produce. The electrical box includes side walls that are spaced substantially the same distance apart from the front edge of the box to the back wall. The outlet box recesses the outlet substantially behind the wall surface, thereby providing protection to the outlet from hard impacts capable of breaking the protective cover. Additionally the outlet box is of simple construction and assembled from a minimum number of separate parts. Furthermore, the construction should be such that the size of the cover is minimized, to minimize the cost of producing the outlet box.